Thursday, March 17, 2016

In response to my last post, attentive reader Randall Bliss sent me some images from his collection of citrus crate labels. I thought I'd share a few of them here, beginning with this beautiful 1920s Cal-Oro butterfly label from Santa Ana-Tustin Mutual Citrus Association. I'll keep my comments to a minimum and just thank Randall for sharing.

I've seen Carnival Brand before, but never noticed that the carnival in question was likely the big annual California Valencia Orange Show, which was held where La Palma Park now sits in Anaheim from 1921 to 1931.

You don't see a lot of California Indians on crate labels. And here's another one who isn't. Even the Pala Brave brand label depicted a guy in a plains Indian headdress. Colorful, but wildly inaccurate. Knowing little about the Mohawk, I don't know how inaccurate this 1930s label art is.

Just a nice 1930s lemon crate label I hadn't seen before. Thing I had to Google: "Albion" is an ancient name for the island of Great Britain.

Orange County farmers always hated seeing thistle plants popping up, since they're damn difficult to eradicate. But on this 1930s label they're used as a symbol of Scotland for the Caledonia brand from Placentia Mutual Orange Association.

There are at least three versions of the Searchlight label, each showing a warship from its respective era: the 1920s, the 1930s, and this one from the 1940s. What struck me about this particular version is the yin/yang "Orange County Quality" label, which I wasn't previously familiar with. I think I need to have that little emblem turned into stickers. You could slap those suckers on all kinds of stuff.

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